nce.
A third question found in the literature regards what the evaluations are used for. Yanhg, Goldstein, Rath, and Hill (1999) report on this topic and state that assessment data is used for school improvement purposes. CPEC also report that assessment outcomes are used to enhance programs to help students. Other authors report on uses regarding cultural issues, predicting future performance, and determining the need for multiple assessment techniques.
Research regarding measurement of the performance of public education has also resulted in the question of whether teachers need more training. Julius (2000) reports that the restructuring for high performance in education currently includes the dissecting, reevaluating, and promoting of the educators and the institutions. The CPEC reports on lessons learned from educational programs and resulting scores on performance measures, and other authors report on effectiveness of new online techniques. The findings and conclusions regarding these questions are presented.
Elliott, Erickson, Thurlow, and Shriner (2000) report the results of their findings, which were focused on students with disabilities. The use of this group offers a possible example of the effects of using state-level assessments as measurements of performance, to determine whether this testing affects outcomes or makes a difference in performance evaluation. The authors note that states are making serious attempts to assess and determine improvement in student performance in public schools, and to do this it is viewed important that all learning be reported accurately. Findings of this study showed that states differ in types of participation and types of data collected for this group. These differences in testing are found to make a difference in performance assessment (pp. 39-44).
The use of practice tests and preparation for standardized tests was explored by Sly (1999) and Field (2000). Sly report...